It may take several years and more than $150 million to undo the damage Hurricane Ike did to the state parks and national wildlife refuges along the Gulf Coast that once attracted more than half a million tourists a year.

The storm eroded beaches, washed away structures and destroyed wildlife habitats in the three refuges and at two state parks between Sabine Pass and Galveston, officials said.

Sea Rim State Park and Galveston State Park, which by itself attracted 250,000 tourists a year, suffered $80 million in damage. Ironically, Sea Rim had been on the verge of reopening after being closed for three years to make $700,000 in repairs needed after Hurricane Rita.

Now, Texas Parks and Wildlife's regional director Justin Rhodes expects it to take at least three to five years to reopen the parks.

``After Rita, we still had a park left at Sea Rim to come back to. This time we don't. Ike has destroyed everything,'' said Rhodes, acknowledging the state has not decided exactly what should be rebuilt in such a hurricane-vulnerable area.

During Ike, a 14- to 20-foot surge flattened the dunes that protected the marsh at Sea Rim. The bay also carved a river underneath Sea Rim's newly built headquarters and visitor center.

The new center, no longer 75 yards from the shore, was itself ravaged and turned into a stick skeleton. Other structures also were damaged beyond repair in the 4,400-acre park. Utilities were ripped out and portions of an asphalt parking lot sank 4 feet.

Similarly, the 2,000-acre Galveston state park lost 75 yards of beach from the surge, as well as its new visitor center. New bathrooms, shelters and utilities that served RV campers were destroyed.

"Water from the bay now flows into the park," said Rhodes.

It's expected to cost about another $72 million to make repairs at three refuges that span 109,000 acres — McFaddin, Anahuac and Texas Point. No date is set for when these facilities might reopen, said Tim Cooper, U.S. Fish and Wildlife's project leader over the refuges.

"It will be gradual, probably done in phases," said Cooper, in answer to when people may return to hunt, swim or view wildlife.

Ike also washed holes in the asphalt of Texas 73 that leads to Sea Rim and the 66,000-acre McFaddin refuge. Five buildings, including the new visitor center perched atop 15-foot pilings, were turned to rubble there, said Cooper.

"We know the surge got very high there, because we found floating material on top of the telephone poles," he said.

Hot tubs and refrigerators

Tons of debris have been hauled away from all these sites, but still more remains. At the 34,000-acre Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, for example, a refrigerator full of food lies in the middle of a butterfly garden and a purple hot tub crowns a pile of debris at a bird-watching overlook.

Anahuac, like the other refuges, is internationally known as a destination for bird watchers. More than 300,000 ducks and geese winter in Anahuac's grassy marsh, while migrating songbirds blanket the area in the spring. Small stands of trees in the refuges provide some of the first rest stops for the migrant birds making a 600-mile pilgrimage across the open water from Mexico.

Alligators also are usually plentiful along with other reptiles and small mammals.

But the green vegetation in these marshlands has since turned muddy brown after being drowned in saltwater, said Cooper. The brown marsh stretches 10 miles inland then stops like a dirty ring around a bathtub. Numerous dead alligators and small mammals, who like most wildlife need fresh water to survive, have been hauled away.

This past week the only alligator seen during a tour of the Anahuac refuge was a small one who sought refuge in a puddle of fresh rainwater on a road there. A hundred Roseate Spoonbills and white egrets were the only flocks seen, and they were clustered on a small pond just off the refuge, which had been pumped with fresh water.

"Those birds were huddled there like it was a Red Cross shelter. It's heartbreaking to see their home destroyed," said Gary Clark, a lifelong birder and naturalist.

Cooper agreed: "We need some good rains to flush out as much salt as we can."

High saline level

If the marsh stays as salty as it is now, he predicts most of the vegetation and trees could die. The butterfly garden's dead stems, for instance, have no flowers to supply nectar for the Monarch butterfly that will soon arrive there.

Tubers and roots that waterfowl usually feed upon also are dead; and a stand of willow trees where songbirds like to rest are mostly bare although a few limbs are valiantly trying to resprout.

The saline level in the coastal marsh there has risen as much as five times above normal, said Steve Wilburn. He manages a nearby hunting lodge, the Cajun Outback, located on 2,200 acres reachable only by boat on Trinity Bay.

While a survivor of Hurricane Carla in 1961, the Cajun Outback proved no match for Ike, Wilburn said.

The rustic lodge, visited by such notables as Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and Nashville singer Billy Dean, and a half dozen other lodges in Chambers County were demolished.

It's critical to rebuild the refuges, parks and lodges, officials said. Visitors to the three refuges pump an estimated $8.8 million a year into the local economies, Cooper said.

"Nature tourism is one of the main industries in our rural county," Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia said.